Should Your Small Business Use Community Tools
Using social network software makes great sense for people in the Internet space, in technology, in new media. But what if you’re a plain old fashioned brick and mortar store? Should you be using all these tools? What’s the point of reaching out to the community if you get your revenue from the people in your physical proximity? The answer is yes. And here’s why.
Become Easier to Find
If I’m traveling cross country by car and looking for interesting places to stop, I’m going to use Google. I’m also going to use Twitter, Facebook, Technorati, Google Blogsearch, and Yelp. Why? Because I’m looking for “digital hobo signs,” markings and write-ups that others have left about the various attractions in an area. I will hear the words of the people, and not marketing. I will hear opinions and thoughts, not a sales pitch.
I WON’T be asking a local Chamber of Commerce for help. I won’t be leafing through the phone book (phone books are for last acts of desperation when you’re in the hotel room and realizing how poorly you’ve planned your trip). I won’t be looking in the local papers.
Reason #1: online community tools helps new business find you
Offer New Products
One thing about a great experience in a real-life setting: you want to re-live it. If you run a cool roadside cafe in the middle of nowhere, but anyone who’s ever been can tell you a great story about their time there, why aren’t you selling tee shirts and ball caps and all kinds of physical things that might remind me of my time there. But then the concern is: what if they just sit on your shelves because people don’t know they’re out there.
What if you set up a Flickr photo group for photos of your business? People can post theirs to the group, tag their photos with your company name, and generally make it easy to share the info. What about starting a blog on Wordpress where you post the best of the photos and encourage visitors to write up their stories? Point links back to where people can buy your tee shirts and caps online.
Reason #2: Add to your bottom line by marketing the experience with products.
Improve Customer Service
Having social networks in place online makes it easier for people with problems to reach out and contact your business as well. The old saying about word of mouth is that a satisfied customer might tell 10 people about their experience with your business, but a dissatisfied customer will definitely tell 100. Though it can be painful to experience, it’s better to get your negative customer opinions aired and handled quickly, so that people might at least see how great you are with handling dissatisfaction.
Having a blog (that allows comments), creating pointers via Facebook and Twitter where people start to know who you are, and other steps in this direction are signs to your customers that you’re interested in their feedback, and that you want the relationship to last beyond the sale.
Reason #3: customer outreach and relationship management builds return business.
What NOT To Do
Probably the #1 mistake small businesses (or individuals) make when getting involved in these social networks is that they pound advertising and promoting down the community’s throat. This isn’t “fish in a barrel” easy. And not everyone who accepts a friend request is a customer, or even a prospect. Sometimes, on social networks, people are just friends.
To that end, avoid sending ceaseless links to your 10% Off Painters Caps sale. Avoid blathering endlessly about your stuff without asking people about theirs. Do the unthinkable and occasionally send links towards other people’s sites and projects. Remember to be a human, be open, admit mistakes.
Here’s an easy one: learn the social norms before you put up too much digital text. Watch how a few other people are communicating, and try to be close enough in form to their style such that you don’t step on the community’s toes. And when you do (because you probably will - I do!), apologize. Just say that you didn’t mean to offend, and that you’re still learning what’s acceptable.
What About You?
I know at least one of my friends has a brick and mortar business. Do you who have offline businesses or organizations (or your family and friends) see the value in any of this? Would YOU recommend this strategy to them? What have I missed?
Photo credit, roadsidepictures
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Comments
I’d add a caveat to Whitney’s comment: if your product/business is not particularly good or customer friendly, and you don’t want to fix it, then this may be a risky strategy. In that case your business has bigger problems that online social networking can’t fix.
The reality is people are probably already talking about your business whether you are participating in the conversation or not. (And if they aren’t saying anything that might even be worse than them saying bad stuff!)
I still say the benefits for a business that wants to improve and grow of participating actively in the conversation far outweigh the potential pitfalls.
Hey Chris, been following you on Twitter and thought this a great post to add my $.02
I wrote a post about the negative feedback on my blog: http://www.mediajoltz.com/2007/06/22/tip-of-the-day-what-do-you-say/
and Christopher Penn added his two cents as well here: http://www.christopherspenn.com/2007/06/30/why-should-a-company-engage-in-new-media/
What’s worth promoting should be good. Community tools only make it easier to use and help out customers despite small issues.
Think its a great idea. We use flickr to host company pictures and product pictures. The service is free, its easily integrated to our blog.
Why do I feel like you have something you want to tell me?
Yes, I have a bricks and mortar business. The liquor store has a blog and an account on Facebook and MySpace. I’ve made a concerted effort to update our info on the local search pages. (Thanks for the tip on Yelp. Now our website and hours are included.)
Is there any benefit to the business? Yes, I know of two big ticket customers who came because of the website.
Don’t expect me to add tshirts as new products, since that is against Oklahoma law. (Actually I could set up a separate entity to sell them offsite and online, but that is really stretching a point.) But I spend a lot of time listening to customer requests to direct our product line.
The neighboring town of Waynoka has a huge tourist market, and I think they have a massive opportunity to reach out online. The existing online forum is nothing to write home about and only promotes the owners. A whole group of local businesses could create a shared space online to the benefit of them all.
In conclusion, networking has changed. If you aren’t present online when people “friendsource”, you miss out every time.
The only thing I would add is that if your product/business is not particularly good or customer friendly, then this may be a risky strategy, because bad word of mouth will spread quickly as you noted- the first step is making sure you’ve got something worth promoting in the first place.